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It has been largely overlooked, but another major corruption trial has been under way in U.S. District Court in Atlanta. And it's not a stretch to call it part of the curse of Bill Clinton.

Mike deVegter, who served as executive assistant to Gov. Joe Frank Harris almost 20 years ago, is on trial before Judge Willis Hunt. The government charged him with illegally conspiring to steer $160 million in bond underwriting in Fulton County to Lazard Freres & Co. DeVegter is accused of taking $41,936 from a co-defendant in exchange for helping Lazard become the managing underwriter on the county's 1992 refinancing of bonds for water and sewer projects.

At the time, deVegter was working for Stephens Inc., as a vice president and as Fulton County's financial adviser.

But deVegter also was a major fund-raiser for then presidential candidate Bill Clinton, long a favorite of the Stephens family. In late 1991, deVegter squired Clinton, then the governor of Arkansas, to an event downtown for senior Georgia Democrats, including Sen. Sam Nunn. Clinton gained a good deal of credibility hereabouts through deVegter's efforts.

During opening arguments, echoes of the Clinton years resounded in the courtroom.

"This case is about corruption and cover-up, fraud and favoritism," said Russell Vineyard, an assistant U.S. Attorney.

And haven't they all been, from Whitewater to Travelgate to the apparent selling of presidential pardons?

Bloomberg News Service reports that deVegter's defense team maintains the payment to their client was legitimate.

NOW THAT THE GEORGIA FLAG with the Confederate battle emblem is a collector's item, and though this column has been arguing for its removal for a decade, it is strangely missed.

It isn't missed for what it had become, a symbol misused by the wrong elements of our society, but for its place in a long line of erased symbols.

Anyone with love and respect for "The Lost Cause" can make a list. "Dixie" no longer can be sung in public. The Battle Flag is now the property of collectors and skinheads. Confederate Memorial Day and Robert E. Lee's birthday are but vestiges of another era.

Though Gov. Roy Barnes' brilliant strategy in obtaining a new flag includes language protecting military memorials, few believe any really are safe.

Years ago, when the first words of protest against the flag began to be heard, this columnist was on the fence. What tipped the scales was a vacation trip to Berlin and Prague. There the battle flag was sold in squares and kiosks alongside German World War II memorabilia. There was no mistaking what the world thought it represented.

THE FLAG SURPRISE overwhelmed the rather minor piece of news that state Rep. Kathy Ashe decided to switch to the Democratic Party. According to the state Democratic chairman, David Worley, Ashe was afraid Ralph Reed's candidacy for state Republican chairman might cause her to get some religion or something.

Ashe, an expert in charter schools and some education issues, deserves special Republican attention in 2002.

The only honorable way is the one practiced a few years ago by then-Attorney General Mike Bowers. He switched to the GOP well in advance of qualifying, allowing aspirants to both parties to raise money and take a shot at him.

As for Ashe, a man I know in Buckhead read the news of her switch in the morning paper and shouted to his wife, "Hey, honey, wanna be in the state House?"

Williams is publisher of the Crier Newspapers and host of "The Georgia Gang" on WAGA-TV (Channel 5). Contact him at (770) 849-2425; or e-mail (thecrier@mindspring.com).

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